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suraj.sun sends along this quote from an Associated Press report:
"Opening a government meeting on auto safety, the Obama administration reported Wednesday that nearly 6,000 people were killed and a half-million injured last year in vehicle crashes connected to driver distraction, a striking indication of the dangers of using mobile devices behind the wheel. The Transportation Department was bringing together experts over two days for what it's calling a 'distracted driving summit' to take a hard look at the highway hazards caused by drivers talking on cell phones or texting from behind the wheel. ... Driver distraction was involved in 16 percent of all fatal crashes in 2008. Eighteen states and the District of Columbia have passed laws making texting while driving illegal and seven states and the district have banned driving while talking on a handheld cell phone, according to the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety. Many safety groups have urged a nationwide ban on texting and on using handheld mobile devices while behind the wheel."

"Distracted" driving? WTF? Texting drivers are WAY more than "distracted". I almost got hit by a stupid bimbo just yesterday who was weaving into my lane, looking down at her phone that she was holding with both hands. After I blew the horn she looked up, got back in her lane, and started texting again. I had an urge to pull in front of her, slam on my brakes, and collect some cash. Not that it would have done any good, she'd still text.

What's worse is it's the young inexperienced drivers that are doing the texting.

Pretty girls walking down the street are distractions. Those blinkey flashey signs you see these days are distractions. The kid screaming in the back seat is a distraction. The passenger next to you sayiing "Oh look! A cow!" is a distraction.

Texting isn't a distraction; it doesn't distract you, it takes YOUR ENTIRE ATTENTION off of what you're doing. Calling texting "distracted driving" puts me in mind of the Holy Grail's "It's just a flesh wound".

All evidence to the contrary, eh [cnet.com]? Look, I can well understand wanting to send a message while driving, but texting really does limit the ability of a driver to actually drive. Accidents where texting is the reason for the failure of the driver to obey proper traffic laws [ocregister.com] are quite common [google.com]. But if you've seen studies that show something different, please link them - or articles linking to them - here. I'd dearly love to read them.

Are you capable of forming an opinion on a subject without requiring a study to back it up? Are human beings in general able to master things that the average person in the average study wasn't capable of?

I don't doubt that many people are too stupid or unskilled to safely text while driving. There's also a lot of people who can't juggle, and most can't walk on a tight rope over a canyon without falling to their deaths. Yet somehow, some people are able to do these things. I can type out a text message on m

Sir Bedevere: What is that?Brother Maynard: He must have died while texting it.King Arthur: Oh come on!Brother Maynard: Well, that's what it says.King Arthur: Look, if he was dying, he wouldn't have bothered to text 'accidsdiosdfnkasdnsdjksdfjhsdjkhkhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh '. He'd just say it.Sir Galahad: Maybe he was dictating it.King Arthur: Oh shut up!Sir Robin: Well does it say anything else?Brother Maynard: No, just "accidsdiosdfnkasdnsdjksdfjhsdjkhkhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh ".[knights making groaning sounds]

as you say 'Distracted Driving' is the actual 'crime' here. And most states already have laws against it on the books already.

This is just marketing hype by politicians to look good doing absolutely nothing useful.

The big gripe I have is comparing texting while driving to drunk driving. They simply are not remotely the same. After a horn honking at them the texter is going to be alert and aware of what's going on around them.

Perhaps texting while driving is actually worse since the effects can be mitigated in an instant, whereas the drunk is on going and can't solve the issue for hours. So a few moments of inattention from texting cause the same results as a drunk's constant impairment.

And even if it is worse, it's a only a training issue. Police cars today have full laptops they use while driving, not to mention cell phones and blackberries and yet we don't see the police having extraordinary accident rates do we? Why? because they are trained for the situation and the tools. Give people proper training and you'll see accident rates of *all* types go way way down.

An example:
I got pulled over a few years ago in VA for flashing my high beams at a slowpoke in the left lane. The ticket? Improper use of high beams. If flashing them is improper, why the hell is it a ready made 'feature' in every car today? Oh and it was daytime, so no way my beams were brighter than the sunlight.

Was I driving perhaps a tad aggressively? yeah I'll admit to that, but if he hadn't been going 55 in the left lane in a 65 zone with a bunch of backed up traffic waiting on him...

Discussing all this with the officer blew my mind:

Me: Doesn't he have to yield to my visual or audible signal?
Officer: I'm not aware of any such law? (upon looking it up, the VA law is audible signal only hence my ticket)
Me: But he's going to slow in the left lane? I can't pass him on the right, that's a dangerous procedure isn't it?
Officer: You can pass him on the right no problem.
Me: Seriously? When did that change?

Think about it. Apparently much of what I learned in driver's ed is no longer the law. Keep right except to pass - gone! Yield to overtaking traffic - gone! Passing on the right illegal - gone!

What's next? If we don't properly train people, we get the anarchy on the roads we see...

I've always interpreted "keep right except to pass" to mean to "stay right unless you have to move left to pass". If you end up passing someone on the right, it's because they aren't following the rules, not because you aren't.

Passing on the right on a multi-lane highway has never been an issue. After all the entire point of having multiple lanes is to handle larger volumes of traffic. It's passing on the right on a single lane highway, as that takes you onto the shoulder which is where loose gravel, pedestrians, cyclists, and people with car problems are likely to be.

Passing on the shoulder is dangerous but that's a separate issue for the reasons you state.

The reason 'keep right except to pass' is a very good idea even on multi-lane roads is to keep traffic moving in predictable patterns, rather than someone playing 'frogger' as they bounce from lane to lane trying to move forward.

It also greatly speeds traffic flow by having the left lanes for faster traffic and the right lanes for slower/entering/exiting traffic. The Europeans literally shake their heads when t

There was a recent push to ticket people who cruise in the left lane here in IL. We are still meant to ride in the right lanes and use the left lanes for passing. I have yet to see anyone pulled over for doing 55 in the left lane of a 65 mph zone though. It'd be nice if they did, it would do a lot to prevent road rage.

I might be younger than you, but I've never been taught that passing on the right was illegal -- just a bad idea. Apparently on the Autobahn it is illegal and taken very seriously (along with blocking up the left lane). I've heard arguments that such a system winds up being a lot safer than the American system of enforcing speed limits and not much else, but there are enough differences between (and even within) the two systems that I'm not sure about drawing big, general conclusions.

I do agree that people are trained very poorly on safe driving in the situations they're likely to encounter. Back in high school (I lived near Chicago then) we spent much more time in the driver's ed cars backing around corners and doing three-point turns than working on lane changes, merges, and other highway techniques. And it showed -- during the test everyone aced the parking-lot maneuvers and the instructor had to grab the wheel from one of my classmates on the highway. Even so, I'm not sure that's the biggest reason that police can seemingly handle a higher level of in-car activity than other drivers. I think there are two bigger differences. First, the police are at work, doing their jobs. They're not just trying to get somewhere, so they've already done their makeup, put on their uniforms, talked to their spouses and friends, etc. The dispatchers are trained in how to talk to drivers, and the radios are designed for drivers (that is, it's really easy to use them without looking at them) and are a lot simpler than cell phones. The driver will often have a partner in the car that is also focused on the task -- providing assistance and not distraction. Furthermore, if they're on patrol it's their job to pay attention to what's going on around them. I think the second difference is that police on the whole take their duty to public safety more seriously than most people -- that's why they went out for the job in the first place. They've seen lots of wrecks and don't want to cause more. Even given good training and a phone that's designed for use while driving (perhaps some of the voice-control systems in recent cars would qualify) most people just don't care very much.

I think it's more likely that police don't get into as many accidents because when a cop shows up, all of the attention is on them and everybody around them starts driving veeery carefully to avoid doing something that will get them a ticket. I've seen officers using their in-car laptops in ways that took their attention off the road in the same way that text messaging takes your attention off the road.

They should also ban passengers in cars then, if its the conversation.

A real person in the car shares your entire context of the traffic situation, communicates using full audio bandwidth and a large dynamic range in a full 3-d sound field.

You talk to someone on a cellphone using about 3kHz of bandwidth, very poor dynamic range, piped through a tiny point source speaker, all made worse by the noisy environment of the car. The random infuriating glitches and dropouts in many wireless connections don't help either.

The study showed that drivers who text and drive become more than one third slower than if they were coherent and not texting - this was compared to a person at the DUI limit or under the influence of illegal drugs. Text messaging lowered reaction time by 35 percent, while people high on marijuana slowed down 21 percent and those who were drunk slowed down by 12 percent.On top of those findings, people reading or writing text messages drifted out of their lane more than people who were focused solely on dri

Headsets are also a distraction, as you are still concentrating on the conversation when you should be concentrating on the road. Which is why it is also illegal where I live. The fine for use of mobile phones, however, is rediculously low: ~100 Euro.

Actually the most recent studies are showing that holding the phone versus using a hands-free device has virtually zero difference in accident rates. The research indicates that merely talking on the cell phone - not holding it - is the main contributor to accidents, which seems pretty obvious to me anyways (it seems pretty obvious that holding a phone to your ear requires a fraction of the attention and concentration that the conversation itself does).

Actually the most recent studies are showing that holding the phone versus using a hands-free device has virtually zero difference in accident rates. The research indicates that merely talking on the cell phone - not holding it - is the main contributor to accidents, which seems pretty obvious to me anyways (it seems pretty obvious that holding a phone to your ear requires a fraction of the attention and concentration that the conversation itself does).

It surprises me somewhat, since it seems it would be harder to use your turn signals when the other hand is holding a phone instead of the wheel and harder to glance around at where other nearby cars are when you're holding something against your ear. I suppose it could just be that nobody does those things anyway, or maybe that they don't actually help...

It's not that hard to drive completely left-handed with a little practice. Driving a manual-transmission car would be more of a challenge (you'd have to hold the phone between your head and shoulder while shifting, which is hard to do with most cell phones). The big problem is that the people you're talking to are often inconsiderate of the fact that you're driving, and they can't know when you're coming up on a merge or a turn. Police officers have lots of gadgets in their cars, and bus drivers and truc

Holding a phone to talk and typing out a text message are two completely different things. As a regular motorcycle rider, you pay attention to things like this.

People talking on phones merely irritate me. They drive slowly in the left lane holding up traffic. They take weeks to pull out of gas stations, etc. It's like they know they're temporarily disabled, so they do everything slowly. They do sometimes become a bit oblivious to the people around them.

No doubt. It still boggles me that there is this big push to make texting illegal since it seems like there could be no possible way that it could be legal. As much of a freedom junkie as I am, I am still perplexed at how it could possibly be legal to read and type while hurling down highways at 50+ MPH in conditions where death can occur within seconds. Even the phone users I am willing to overlook while gritting my teeth, despite the many times that they have nearly swirved into or in front of me, always

What about everything else? Makeup, Food, Kids, etc? Does the EU regulate what you can and can't do in your cars? I know Americans are different from a few countries in the regard that driving is a waste of your time and you can multitask, where other countries see driving as 'the task at hand'.

After driving German cars for most of my life, you can see that Germans use their cars to drive. I can just see the conversation now from back in the day:Manager: Zee Americans komplain about 'cup holders'.Engineer:

They're not. The insurance companies can't police it. They can only get involved after an accident has occurred and investigated. By which time the damage is already done.

Whilst it;s possible to theorise that increased insurance premiums after an accident and investigation is enough to deter, that's not the way human psychology works. People don't think that texting is going to cause the accident in the first place, otherwise they wouldn't do it. And if they don;t believe it's going to cause an accident, it logically follows that they don;t anticipate the subsequent effect of their insurance going up.

People are terrible at estimating risk. And even if told what the risk is, they tend to believe it won't happen to them regardless. That's why there need to be rules (laws) made, taking into account actual evidence of risk.

You're missing the point. It is legitimately illegal to risk other people's lives. You don't get to buy the right to do it via insurance premiums.

If anything, distracted driving laws - like many traffic laws - ought to account for the fact that they can't "make things right" after the fact by doing a better job of prevention. You should not be able to 'fix' a ticket to a non-moving violation, and if you do something truly stupid you should lose the privilege of driving.

Just because American society has reached the point where driving is assumed commonplace to the extent that we'll let a turnip do it, doesn't mean that's how it should be.

First, let me rebut your anti-turnip driven remarks. If said turnip is able to pass the driving test and refrain from excessive bad driving behavior, by all means give it a license and toss it behind the wheel. Although it may throw off our "new" facial recognition features factored into our license pictures...

Many places already have "distracted driving" laws - I went to defensive driving school with a guy ticketed for just that. He'd been drinking a soda while in motion (and I assume didn't get along well with the cop). [For anyone interested, I'd been grabbed for a rolling stop in the middle of nowhere with nobody around for miles other than me and the cop hiding behind a burm...] I'm not sure that specifying specific laws about texting/cells/shaving/whatever is really necessary - Give the cops a little bit of credit. Make sure that you've got a "distracted driving" law on the books and let the cops decide who to ticket for driving like a douche.

I realize that the idea will panic a lot of people because we have a lot of power-hungry cops who abuse any flexibility that they're given (e.g. ticketing somebody for drinking through a straw while driving), but are we really going to make separate laws for texting, lipstick application, shaving, talking on the phone, changing shirts, peeing into a Gatorade bottle, beating the kids in the back seat to shut them up, checking your purse to make sure you remembered your dry-cleaning ticket, changing the time on the radio to reflect daylight savings, eating a taco, eating a burrito, etc?

Sorry, sitting at a red light isn't the time to turn your brain off, and diddle with that telephone. Pay attention to the traffic. Among other things, a tractor trailer may be making a left turn, and you need to move a few feet to let him get by. Some fool may run the red light and cause an accident - you should be able to make a statement to the police. An old lady may stroke out, and fall to the pavement in front of you - you didn't see her, so when the light turns green, you just drive over her. Do you ever look in the rear view mirror while stopped? The guy behind you may NOT stop - you might wish to move out of his way at the last second.

In short, SHUT UP AND DRIVE!! If you're behind the wheel, no matter where, you have a responsibility to be ALERT!

This should be handled by insurance, not Big Brother. If you wreck, you pay higher premium.

Requiring that people pay attention when operating dangerous machinery in a public place is "big brother"? Should it also be possible to drive drunk, provided you have expensive drunk-driving insurance?

The market isn't going to solve everything. Preventing you from getting killed by idiots is pretty much the most legitimate function a government has.

This should be handled by insurance, not Big Brother. If you wreck, you pay higher premium.

Which doesn't work, because nobody thinks they're going to wreck (probably they just don't think, period). Which would be fine if they were the only people affected by their own carelessness, but they're not.

This is the part where you don't get to be libertarian without a license.;) In a libertarian/anarcho-capitalist world, the government wouldn't own the roads. You would pay to drive on privately-owned roads. You get into too many accidents due to your texting-while-driving or, really, for any reason, and it'll be very simple: the road owner would likely ban you from his road as being hazardous to his other customers. Sooner or later you get banned from so many roads and you can't go anywhere!

>>>>should be handled by insurance, not Big Brother. If you wreck, you pay higher premium.

Yesterday I saw a mother on television who was crying. Why? Because some woman driver was texting and never saw the 5-year-old little girl - just ran over her and only stopped because she wondered what that "thump" sound was.

So how exactly do you think an insurance company is supposed to handle that case? Triple the woman's premiums? No. There is a time and place for government to get involved, and this is that time. Just as DUI is banned so too should distracted driving be banned. The government's job is to protect our right to not be murdered, from those who are too stupid or selfish to care.

If by "this is just stupid" you're referring to your comment, I agree.

This should be handled by insurance, not Big Brother.

Bullshit. When you flash past that red light because you're looking at your damned phone and not the road and T-bone me, I'm the one that suffers. Perhaps you'd like to legalize murder and let the life insurance companies handle it? Government shouldn't try to protect me from myself (big brother) but they'd damned well better try to protect me from morons like YOU.

You do realise that you put MY life in danger when you drive stupid? Maybe not, I guess, or you wouldn't have posted such an incredibly stupid comment.

Receiving a text is very different than sending one. I'll read a text or a brief email while I'm driving. It's not much different from looking down at your stereo. Actually composing a text requires that you focus both on what you want to say and hitting the proper buttons to say it.

I think you're deceiving yourself here. It's actually recommended that users specifically NOT mess with their stereo while driving as that too is a major cause of accidents. Taking your eyes off the road is a bad thing. It's why so many cars now come with steering wheel mounted controls for the stereo so that you can skip tracks and such without having to reach over or take your eyes off the road.

Yes and it is a good thing gone very bad.I would love to get those texts as I am walking out to my car, stopped at a light, or when I am stopped in a traffic jam or when I am riding as a passenger in the car.The problem is that too many people will try to read them while driving. I don't buy the idea it is no different that looking down at your radio. If you have to read your radio then you have issues.Really folks keep your eyes on the road. Even messing with the radio should be limited to when you are sto

In some countries there are major restrictions on billboards and roadside signage, including limits on size and, animation. Obviously billboards are designed to attract the drivers attention which of course distracts the drivers attention away from the road and traffic conditions.

I'll feel safe when no one has arms anymore. Just have 'em lopped off at birth and you get robotic arms attached only after passing twenty seven complicated common sense tests. That way the morons that cause these safety laws to be required don't stand a damn chance of getting voted in to congress anymore. Maybe we can make a similar method for breeding, too...

4) Make people pay attention. Two hands on the wheel except to shift and control lights and wipers. And get the damn radio control buttons off of the steering wheel.

Minor quibble, but radio control buttons on the steering wheel are actually safer, as the alternative is for someone to lean over and find the button, which is almost going to necessarily requiring looking at the radio. If they're on the wheel in a simplified fashion (volume up/down, and track forward/backward), then a user can generally do that by feel without having to look away from the road.

Also, I'd question whether two hands on the wheel makes any difference. Heck when I was learning to fly I instinctively put two hands on the yoke and was immediately told not to - too much pressure on the controls tends to make you go with the flow and follow pulls and such as they happen. One hand with less pressure allowed you to receive more feedback from the controls and adjust more quickly. My inclination would be to say the same could very well apply to cars.

I think (1) makes a lot of sense, and I'd buy into the idea of the behind-the-wheel test involving a drive on real streets and highways for an extended distance (20 miles?). And why not it a re-test every 7 years after age 55?

The rest makes sense too, although radio controls on the steering wheel I think makes you MORE focused, not less, since you're not reaching for the controls.

Driving while distracted is already illegal. Telling us exactly how to do everything is not making people any more responsible. Solve the problem by applying existing law using common sense instead of making new laws that are easier to apply.

Solve the problem by applying existing law using common sense instead of making new laws that are easier to apply.

Not everybody has common sense. As it stands now, I'm sure there are plenty who think they are supermen* who aren't "distracted" just because they're texting. Sure, if they cause an accident, the judge won't agree, but it's better that they've heard unequivocally that "texting and driving is illegal", and don't cause an accident in the first place. Just like the way we have drink-driving laws a

It's just another loop hole insurance companies will use to not pay out claims.Fault will be immediately assigned to the driver who was texting, there insurance won't pay, everybody is screwed...well except the insurance companies.Just like if their is an accident and a vehical has a broken bottle of liquor fault is assigned to that vehicle EVEN IF THE DRIVER WASN'T DRINKING, and it's damn hard to get anyone to review and change the fault even with a toxicology report.

If someone is driving recklessly, give them a ticket. You can not pass laws to specifically name every way someone could drive dangerously.

OAN: isit me, or is EVERYTHING more dangerous then driving while drunk?(.08)

It's just another loop hole insurance companies will use to not pay out claims.

I have no problem with this. Lower premiums for people who are not idiots. This is the way things should work.

Fault will be immediately assigned to the driver who was texting, there insurance won't pay, everybody is screwed...well except the insurance companies.

Explain how I will be screwed, since I'm not the driver who was texting.

Just like if their is an accident and a vehical has a broken bottle of liquor fault is assigned to that vehicle EVEN IF THE DRIVER WASN'T DRINKING, and it's damn hard to get anyone to review and change the fault even with a toxicology report.

So put it in the trunk. What is liquor doing in the passenger compartment anyway, if nobody was drinking it?

If someone is driving recklessly, give them a ticket. You can not pass laws to specifically name every way someone could drive dangerously.

No, you can't. Nor is it easy to convict someone of being "reckeless" or "dangerous" since those are subjective terms. On the other hand, "drunk" (defined by BAC) and "texting" are things that can be proven.

Yes, we do have those laws already. Every state in the Union has one, there's no need for a Federal crackdown. Careless driving has nothing to do with interstate commerce or any other area of the Federal government's responsibility. Color me shocked that Obama* and his team still feel the need to poke their noses into this issue, though.

I am not sure about a due care type of law in the US. A few years back, some idiot was watching a dvd in his pickup truck and killed another driver. The specific act was not written as illegal yet, so he got off without any big charges against him. If lawyers can use this defense, then the laws are unfortunately going to have to be written out explicitly as what is not allowed to be done.

The summary says that "nearly 6,000 people were killed and a half-million injured last year in vehicle crashes connected to driver distraction". What percentage of accidents was that? What percentage of people who drove last year was that? How many of those "driver distraction" cases were text messaging? For that matter, how many were from people using "mobile devices behind the wheel"? How many were changing the radio station? How many were eating something?
Texting while driving is stupid, but current laws already cover it. I am pretty sure that a ticket for reckless driving given to someone texting while driving would hold up in court.

I agree with this completely. And in a population as large as even one developed nation, 6000 is a pittance. More than this will be killed due to almost any other type of death statistic measured.

I also balk at the blanket of 'driver distraction'. Does this cover sneezing? Or better put, how long until this does cover sneezing? Because that kills people too. Probably something like 6000 a year. What about falling asleep? Can we mandate caffeine tests for all drivers?

Opening a government meeting on auto safety, the Obama administration reported Wednesday that nearly 6,000 people were killed and a half-million injured last year in vehicle crashes connected to driver distraction, a striking indication of the dangers of using mobile devices behind the wheel.

...

Transportation officials said in a research report that 5,870 people were killed and 515,000 were injured last year in crashes where at least one form of driver distraction was reported. Driver distraction was involved in 16 percent of all fatal crashes in 2008.

Where did this "striking indication" come from, when the statistics given by the article do not say how many of those crashes were related to being distracted by cell phones? It could just as easily be babies in the back seat, blow jobs, etc. The point is, we don't know.

Imagine the following made up story:

Opening a government meeting on home safety, the Obama administration reported Wednesday that nearly 6,000 people were killed and a half-million injured last year in accidents around the house, a striking indication of the dangers of keeping guns in the home.

Eighteen states and the District of Columbia have passed laws making texting while driving illegal and seven states and the district have banned driving while talking on a handheld cell phone.

This is an example of states setting their own laws to respond to an issue that directly affects the lives of their citizens. The possibility of the federal government stepping in and usurping this power is analogous to America's situation as far as the legal drinking age goes - MADD used its lobbying power to get Congress to essentially coerce the states into following its will. Keep in mind, barring a constitutional amendment, congress lacks the power to directly affect the drinking age - hence their questionable approach (albeit one that has been upheld by the courts) of saying, "well look, states, we're not telling you you HAVE to set the drinking age at 21, but if you don't, something might happen to your federal highway funding. We're just saying, it could happen." I realize that it would be somewhat impractical for the federal government to stay limited by an extremely strict interpretation of the Constitution, but there is absolutely no reason for the national government to waste its valuable time meddling here (don't we have a health care crisis or recession or whatever that they should be dealing with?). Cell phone use, like the drinking age, is one of those areas which should not be controlled nationally - if we take away all the powers of the states to set their own laws, then what's the point of even having a federal system to begin with?

You forgot to mention that Liddy Dole, as Secretary of Transportation, was largely responsible for the National Minimum Drinking Age Act. I remember her pushing the 21 year old drinking age, yes, in heavy collaboration with MADD, during the first Reagan administration, a period when this country seemed besotted with stupid ideas.

And then the state should say "Fuck you" and then put big signs along the interstate freeways saying:"This road is not being repaired becasue the federal government refuse to fund it" along the freeway.

At the very least, the truckers union will start to get annoyed becasue it impacts their members, and shipping companies will start to get annoyed, and then your funding will appear. Probably be some newly elected officials.

...and maybe running red lights. But you'll never see existing driving-while-distracted laws enforced. So all this hullabaloo about a Federal Summit ignores the fundamental flaw in roadway policing. The cops pretty much ONLY care about the speed you're going. They never pull anyone over for violating basic rules like failing to use a turn signal, zig-zaggers who change lanes endlessly to get 3 car lengths ahead, etc. And to make it even more inane, the speed limits are arbitrary and political, rarely having a correlation to the road they are posted on.

NY state just passed "tough" new laws prohibiting texting while driving. But that made the roads a lot less safe in much of the state.

Two of the most trafficy counties, Nassau and Westchester (the two suburbs right next to NYC, with millions of their own people, and millions more through commuters) already had texting prohibitions for drivers. If a cop there saw someone texting on the road, they could be pulled over just for texting, and given a pretty steep ticket. Repeat offenses quickly revoked their dri

This entire anti-texting movement makes no sense whatsoever. We've been fighting drunk driving ever since cars were invented, and we've barely made any progress in that area, much less distracted driving. The main thing that has reduced fatalities is better auto safety design, but people are still getting behind the wheel when they're impaired. If we can't stop people from driving drunk, how can we possibly expect them to drive "undistracted"?

I agree that distracted drivers is a BIG problem. However, the response to it is idiotic:

Many safety groups have urged a nationwide ban on texting and on using handheld mobile devices while behind the wheel."

Why is it idiotic?

There are laws already covering it. If you're driving >10mph under the limit, you're guilty of a reverse "speeding" infraction, AND hindering the flow of traffic. Two lucrative finable offenses.

If you are weaving in and out of your lane you are guilty of two or three offenses: failure to maintain control of your vehicle, improper lane changes (one offense per time you cross the line without using turn indicators), and reckless driving,

If you sail right through a stop or yield sign, or if you change lanes cutting someone off (aside from anyone exceeding the speed limit or anyone using the breakdown lane - here in MA the breakdown lane MUST yield to ALL other traffic where breakdown lane travel is allowed, but unfortunately the massholes who use it use it as a passing lane and will not yield to anyone) you're guilty of reckless driving and ignoring rights of way, yield, and traffic signal laws.

Either way you look at it, there are laws in place which can be used to solve this problem once and for all. However, thanks to assholes who don't think logically, but think with their hearts "Oh someone think of the children" my using my GPS could be outlawed. That's okay though because I will go back to using a compass and street directories. That way, I can become a distracted driver who is paging through a thick book and staring at a map to figure out where I am but that will be perfectly legal, and presumably safer than using my handheld gps/phone with its realtime traffic updates.. Right? Of course the printed street directory will be safer. Gotcha.

See the problem is the massholes causing the problem are going unpunished because revenue officers are too busy pulling people over who are "speeding" on the interstate (although those evil speeders are traveling at speeds of at least 60mph slower than the interstates were originally designed for - based on 1960s automotive suspension technologies) so they can meet their quotas rather than enforcing actual safety issues covered by law. No, instead it's just easier to punish everyone because of the irresponsible few. Throw the baby out with the bathwater. Don't you dare pick up that cellphone if you're a doctor or an EMT on call. Don't you dare pick up that phone and call for directions when you're lost (instead, drive around erractically as you figure out where you are). Don't you dare check your GPS or click "reroute."

Instead, much like the drinking age, using cellphones without headsets, and trans fats and sodas, let's throw out the baby with the bathwater. Let's punish EVERYONE for the irresponsibility of the few.

You can pull your ass over to answer the phone, it's not that hard to take an extra 5 minutes to get to your destination.

Like pulling off to the side of the road makes it safer? I think it makes you more of a target for someone being distracted by the toddler in the back seat. At least when your driving, the difference in speed is smaller.

It is safer to get hit from behind by a car going 55 while you are stationary than it is to be hit head on by a car doing 55 while you are doing 55 in the opposite direction because you crossed the center line.

As someone who spends more time on the roads on a bicycle than in a car, it is safer for me that you pull over to the side and I have to stop, dismount, and walk around you than for you to hit me because you did not see me.

At least then it's not your fault; if someone rams into you when you're parked on the side of the road, it's because they were on the phone.

On the other hand, no one sympathizes with you if you didn't pull over because Tiffani totally went to see Twilight at the theaters and totally saw Jessi there and you just needed to know that while weaving between cars on the highway.

+1 for Atlanta having idiots driving. But you also don't have do deal with the 30mph Town Car of Doom that everyone in Florida has to deal with.The only time I have almost been at fault in a serious accident (over 5mph) was when driving 80 (in a 70) on I75 from Tampa to Sarasota, mid day on a weekday, empty interstate and almost rear ended some 90 year olds going ~35mph in the left (of 3) lanes. I saw them way out in front, and took a bite or changed the radio or something. Next thing i knew I was panic sw

The obvious solution is to put a 10-inch stake pointing out the steering wheel. This would not only solve texting, but a whole lot of other problems with aggressive driving.
Deaths would be high the first month, but that's just Darwin cleaning up the gene pool.

Until I get impaled when some jackhole is texting behind me and I have to stop for a light, backed up traffic, etc. Jackhole hits my bumper at 70 mph and, assuming his car actually stops, my headrest hits the back of my skull at 60mph, and I die.
Darwin fails.

The train thing should be easy enough, since train tracks don't move around and there aren't that many of them. A small table of local vectors should cover that, or make it server based. The passenger thing would be more difficult or possibly impossible. It would be nice though, to have a motion locking function for teen's cell phones that are part of a family plan.

If people are playing around with their iPods while driving they seriously need to get a better car stereo. My brand new one I spent a whole $100 on has iPod controls, so I use the remote (not requiring me to look at the stereo to control) and it does what I want.

You misunderstand the cause. Disclosure: I work for a major US university in transportation research, we've been doing studies on various impairment (including distraction) for as long as I've been here, which is over ten years. As in, you drive with a cell phone, you drive with a hands-free cell phone, you drive while changing the radio every 30 seconds, you drive while drunk. Then we compare objective performance measures.

The physical interaction is not the major problem. It is the mental engagement that causes the driver to remove attention from the driving task. Eating that fast food cheeseburger does not take a lot of thought. Neither does adjusting the heat, mirrors, or stereo (once you have some basic familiarity with their operation). Following a route on a GPS is not a problem.

Cell phone conversations (hands-on AND hands-free) and composing text messages/email do take a significant concentration from the driving task. You are correct that passengers can be a serious problem, particularly with younger drivers*. Route-planning on a GPS is a problem.

*There is much debate in the community as to why cell phone conversations are worse than in-vehicle conversations with adults. A lot of theories, no solid evidence. Except to show that there is a demonstrable difference. One such theory is that the in-car conversation is a self-paced task while the cell phone is a forced-pace task. Your passenger does not wonder why you got quiet when trying to merge onto a busy freeway. The person on the other end of the cellphone is not aware of the driving environment and people will keep up the conversation even when dangerous to do so.

One of my favorite research videos is from a high school where students had their cars set up with cameras and computer recording. A girl goes around a slippery curve in winter, the car does two complete spins, and lands in the outside ditch. At no point does she drop the cell phone or stop talking to the other person. Although, at the end, it is mostly "Oh my god! I'm crashing!"